Lindsay Hoyle: I thank my hon. Friend for that assurance. I just hope that other hon. Members will do the same.
	The Bill is important and I thank the supporters who have turned up today. It is a Bill—and a campaign—that matters. I would like to thank in particular the major trade unions and the smaller trade unions that have backed the Bill and worked tirelessly with their members to raise the profile of the issue and to rally support among MPs. I would also like to thank our people in the party who made the issue a manifesto pledge. We all stood on that manifesto, and it is one that I am proud to stand by, but it seems that some people wish to drop that pledge along the way. I find that very strange.
	I would like also to thank the 178 colleagues from all parties who signed early-day motion 699 on the issue and the 11 colleagues, also from all parties, who have sponsored the Bill. There is cross-party support for the Bill, so it seems strange that the Government oppose it, but there we are. I thank the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Minister for Employment Relations for meeting me to discuss the matter. In fact, we were still discussing it on Wednesday evening, because we had not reached agreement. We tried to change the Bill. We wanted to be amiable and remove any ambiguity from it, so for somebody to decide to try to scupper it while discussions were taking place is quite unacceptable.

Lindsay Hoyle: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill ended up being opposed and it caused delay for another 12 months: that did not help the people we are meant to represent. I hope that others who want to oppose this Bill will take note of my hon. Friend's words.
	The Bill calls on the Government to link the value of statutory redundancy pay limits to the level of average earnings, which will ensure that future increases in statutory redundancy pay are linked to average earnings. Before discussing the Bill in detail, however, I would like to inform Members about how statutory redundancy pay is currently calculated so that they can understand why I am introducing the Bill.
	The amount of statutory redundancy pay to which an employee is entitled depends on his or her age and length of service and pay. An employee who has been employed continuously for more than two years is entitled to half a week's pay for each complete year of service between the ages of 18 to 21, one week's pay for each complete year of service between the ages of 22 and 40 and one and a half week's pay for each complete year of service after reaching the age of 41. There is, however, a statutory cap on the amount of employee's weekly pay that can count towards the entitlement to statutory redundancy pay. Since February, the limit has been set at £350.
	When statutory redundancy pay was introduced back in 1965 through the Redundancy Payments Act 1965, the limit was set at £40, even though average weekly earnings for that year stood at £19.95, which meant that it was twice the average weekly wage when people first had the vision back in 1965 to introduce the SRP.

James McGovern: I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing his Bill. He may be aware that yesterday in my Dundee constituency, a major employer, NCR, announced 250 redundancies, and while I am sure that the local Unite trade union official, Fiona Farmer, will attempt to negotiate some sort of enhanced package, does my hon. Friend agree that if there is no such package, it is precisely those sort of people that his Bill will help?

Lindsay Hoyle: Very good! My hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick) is absolutely spot on. It is all about helping and there has never been a more appropriate time than now to offer help, because we are a Government who care, who are meant to look after everyone, so I could not have put it better myself.

John Bercow: I am pleased to support the hon. Gentleman's private Member's Bill, as he knows. Although I do not wish to intrude on private Labour party grief, may I put it to him that Ministers should not seek to prevent the Bill from going into Committee because of any concern about costs? Precisely because the hon. Gentleman is simply suggesting that a link should be made, without being overly prescriptive about it, the Government still have the matter in their own hands. To prevent the Bill from making progress, when an important principle is being established, seems to me to be perverse.

Dennis Skinner: The hon. Gentleman should Chair the Committee for the Bill.

Lindsay Hoyle: Yes, I would always give way to the Minister. I do think he is an innocent abroad; I am not too sure how far abroad he is at the moment, but there we are.
	As I was saying, the relative value of the payments have declined, so a significant proportion of the working population now earn significantly more than what is offered, so it is only right to address the issue, particularly given the economic times. There is no better time than now. Some people say that now is the wrong time, but that is absolutely not the case. When people need us, it is the right time.

Dennis Skinner: It is the right time. The Government have, quite properly, said that now is the time to put money into people's pockets to give them a greater propensity to spend. They have done that for pensioners by bringing forward to January the biggest increase for about 30 years; they have brought forward increases in child benefit, tax allowances and all the rest of it. The idea behind what the Government are doing is encouraging the propensity to spend. My hon. Friend's Bill is seeking to do exactly the same, so let me say this to the Minister: does he and the Cabinet understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) and the rest of us are engaged in a practice here today of helping the Chancellor to put more money into the economy to help it recover?

Lindsay Hoyle: Absolutely. All these case studies are not being cited by me, but by Members who are appealing to the Government to take notice and listen. There is no better case than the one put forward by my hon. Friend. Indeed, there is not a Member in the House who has not had constituents affected by the credit crunch or by statutory redundancy.

Robert Flello: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words earlier about our conversation about Wedgwood. He mentioned mortgages. Does he agree that when obscene amounts of money are going to people who have got us into this mess, and those people do not have a problem with statutory redundancy limits, why on earth should our hard-working people have such problems?

David Drew: The number of redundancies will be greater in this country because many firms on the Continent already pay wage-related redundancy compensation. It is because of their higher redundancy costs that they will not lose their work forces. The Bill is an important measure which will keep people in jobs, as well as dealing with the circumstances that would arise were they to lose their jobs.

Lindsay Hoyle: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. As ever, he is absolutely spot on and he explains his point most eloquently. I am sure that there are no closed ears on our Labour Front Bench—I am sure that everybody is listening to what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I hope they take that good advice on board.
	I would like to place on record my thanks to all the bodies who have worked tirelessly both in terms of proposing a Bill on statutory redundancy, and in working with me to ensure that we mobilise an effective campaign to persuade our Government to support their own manifesto pledge and accept this proposal. I would also like to thank everybody who has worked so very hard, including in my office. Tireless workers have, in a very short space of time, brought this Bill together, and have brought us together today to try to ensure we get the numbers we need for this Bill to progress.
	Members of the public from across the whole of the United Kingdom have contacted me to support this Bill, and we have learned that other Members are also being contacted and asked to support it. The Warwick agreement includes references to improving statutory redundancy pay, and we stood on an election manifesto to implement Warwick—so I say to those who do not think it is in the manifesto, that it is in it. In the light of this, I urge Members and the Minister to back the Bill, which will take one step towards helping people who are unfortunate enough to lose their jobs. In their hour of need, we should be giving them that support. I commend the Bill to the House.

Patrick McFadden: As my hon. Friend remarks, the evidence shows that that was not the case. When we intervene in response to the recession, it is very much because the interests of ordinary, hard-working men and women who do their jobs faithfully, day in and day out, are at the heart of our concerns. There is sometimes confusion about that: when people see us intervening in the banking system, or see us acting as an insurer or a guarantor of lending risk, they may feel that we are doing that purely because we feel concern for the banks, or indeed the investment bankers who took some of the decisions that led to the problems that we face, but that is not the case.
	We intervene because a properly functioning banking system is an essential prerequisite of a modern economy. It is a basic necessity for companies that employ millions of people. Of course, banks are the home of the savings of the hard-working men and women who are at the heart of our concerns, and the home of the savings that those who have retired have built up over the course of their life. Although the intervention is in the banks, the concern is not for the bankers but for those who have invested their trust and their savings in the banks.
	The same is true of the other measures that we have taken in response to the recession. We have taken a dual approach to the downturn, which involves both tackling its causes—the international banking crisis and the lack of adequate lending—and dealing fairly with the consequences. That means providing the right support for people and businesses. The Bill is concerned with support for people who are at the sharp end of what is happening in the downturn. For example, with regard to the credit crunch, we believe it is important to try to maintain lending to businesses, so that they can keep employing the people with whom the Bill is concerned, as well as lending to households, which is vital for growth and jobs.
	The health of the economy also matters to banks, as growth and jobs determine whether borrowers can repay their loans, and whether the banks can make new loans. That is why the Government took decisive action in October and since then to ensure that the banking system does not collapse, and to ensure the certainty and confidence needed to get credit flowing again.
	This is not just a British response. After the steps taken in October in the United Kingdom, similar action was taken by countries around the world. The detail of the response may differ from state to state, but across the world there is a common approach, which is to try to stabilise the banking system and engage in fiscal stimulus in order to restore confidence, get credit moving and ensure that the recession is shallower and less long-lasting than it might otherwise be. Our response is not just national; it is also about calling on other Governments to join us in taking action to get credit flowing again, because that is central to get the world economy moving. Here in the UK, we have announced a number of measures to help businesses and employment. That is about delivering real help to businesses that are in urgent need of credit, which is important if we are to stop the job losses to which the Bill is designed to respond.

Patrick McFadden: I think that my hon. Friend will find that I am always happy to be guided by the Prime Minister, as are all Ministers of the Crown.
	I was talking about how the redundancy scheme works. Upon making any redundancy payment, the employer must give the employee a written statement indicating how the payment has been calculated. If the employer fails to provide that statement without reasonable excuse, they could be guilty of an offence and fined up to £200. The Business Link website, which is an important source of information for all employers and the general public, particularly during the recession, hosts information that will help employers to calculate statutory redundancy payments due to their employees and produce written statements for each employee showing the amount of redundancy pay and how it was calculated.
	It is automatically unfair and sex discrimination to select an employee for redundancy for a reason connected with maternity leave, birth or pregnancy. If the reason for redundancy is connected with other family leave—paternity leave, parental leave and so on—that is automatically unfair and may be sex discrimination.
	I have outlined an individual's rights when faced with redundancy. As I said, redundancies have sadly risen in recent months. I told the House a few moments ago that, in the last quarter of 2008, there were more than 260,000 redundancies reported in the labour force survey, which is the highest level for some years. The quarterly redundancy figures in the recession in the early 1990s reached about 350,000—significantly more than we are now experiencing—but I do not seek to deny the urgency of the redundancy situation facing many people or the good motivation of my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley in bringing the matter before the House and asking what can be done.
	Past recessions were sometimes felt in different ways around the country. At the moment, the highest proportions of redundancies are occurring in the south-east and the west midlands. As an MP who represents a constituency in the west midlands, I am sad to say that the largest increase in redundancies since the fourth quarter of 2007 has been in that region. The regional redundancy rates show that the north-east now has a rate of 15.8 per cent., up from 6 per cent. in the fourth quarter of 2007. That is followed by the west-midlands, Wales, the north-west and Yorkshire and the Humber. The west midlands has seen the largest increase in recent times.
	I am afraid that redundancies are increasing among all age groups. They are all experiencing higher levels of job losses compared with the same period a year ago. However, it appears that those in mid-career are often the worst hit. Men are experiencing more redundancies than women. Almost 70 per cent. of all redundancies are among the male work force. That figure, too, is increasing, and relatively young men are experiencing significant numbers of redundancies. The situation is affecting various regions and groups of people.
	Sadly, people with lower levels of academic qualification are also being badly affected by redundancy. There has been an increase in redundancy across all qualification levels, but the biggest increase in the fourth quarter figures that I have quoted was among those with no qualifications. This reaffirms our view that one of the significant challenges in the labour market is to reskill and re-equip workers and to offer them one-to-one help in training. That is a significant part of our response to the recession, which is why I asked the hon. Member for Huntingdon whether he supported such measures in that regard and about his stance in opposing the Bill.
	People with higher qualifications—those with NVQ level 4 or above—accounted for 27 per cent. of all redundancies before the recession really began to bite, but the proportion is 19 per cent. in the most recent figures. There has been a major increase in the number of job losses for those with qualifications that are not at degree or higher education level. Job losses for people in those groups increased from 9,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 28,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008.
	Probably the greatest concentration of job losses is in the construction industry, which saw an increase of just over 38,000 over the period—from 9,500 job losses in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 48,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008. The industry now accounts for 18 per cent. of all recent redundancies, up from 9 per cent. a year before. We also have large proportions of redundancies in manufacturing, and almost a fifth of all redundancies are in part-time positions. Some 49,000 part-time employees lost their job in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from 17,000 a year before.
	One of the silver linings in this picture is that the labour market is still dynamic. Most people who lose their jobs find another one within six months. Nevertheless, it is important to set out to the House that this problem affects significant numbers of people and important industries in our country. We are, of course, particularly concerned with the long-term unemployed; that is why we have concentrated much additional help on those who have been unemployed for six months or more. We know that the longer people are outside the labour market, the more difficult it will be for them to find a new job.
	In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley, and certainly in my own, memories are still fresh about the devastation caused to communities in the 1980s and the 1990s, when whole industries were wiped out. It is important to say that we will not take the same approach to this recession as was taken by the previous Government to the recessions that happened before.

Patrick McFadden: I am happy to accept your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	As I said, our package of support for people who face redundancy includes extra help with mortgage payments after three months. Most people who lose their jobs manage to find another in six months, so the support is important to help people keep their home. One of the worst things that can happen when someone is made redundant is losing one's home, too. We are keen to minimise that and to offer help so that it does not happen in any more cases than absolutely necessary through a long-term inability to keep up with the mortgage.
	The Bill deals specifically with redundancy payments and a fair deal for those who face redundancy. How we ensure that those who are made redundant are properly and fairly rewarded for their service is a fair question to pose to the House and the Government. In that context, it is important to examine the history of statutory redundancy pay and how it developed.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley said, the principles of the scheme that we are discussing were devised in 1965, when Harold Wilson introduced the first statutory redundancy payments. The principles were embodied in the Redundancy Payments Act 1965 and essentially formulated in the report of an interdepartmental committee on redundancy, which was appointed in January 1963 under the chairmanship of Sir James Dunnett. The committee's terms of reference were:
	"To examine how far existing provisions by Government and industry for meeting the problems of redundancy are adequate to promote the mobility of labour necessary for economic efficiency and to provide security to workers."
	The Dunnett committee based the theoretical justification for redundancy payments on two grounds, one economic and one social, of which the former was held to be overwhelmingly more important. The aim was to induce redeployment from overmanned to undermanned undertakings rather than, as we might naturally assume, purely to assist with financial hardship. In other words, it was a labour mobility rather than purely a social welfare measure.
	In the early 1960s, before the scheme was introduced, industry operated voluntary redundancy systems. Only around 15 per cent. of employees in manufacturing industry were covered by redundancy schemes, although most nationalised undertakings and the public sector had them. It was felt at the time that it was important to plug the gap in the country's employment structure to encourage workers to be prepared to move from one industry or part of the economy to another.
	Obviously, we understand that workers might have been reluctant to move from an industry, which offered redundancy protection to another, which did not. The Dunnett committee concluded that the purpose of further action on redundancy should be to encourage greater efficiency in industry and contribute to economic growth. What we now regard as the fundamental purpose of redundancy schemes—to help with hardship after workers become unemployed and reward them for length of service—was perceived as a secondary consideration at the time compared with labour mobility. The redundancy scheme was seen very much as an economic measure and a cornerstone of the Wilson Government's attempt to harness the infamous white heat of technology.
	It is important to recognise the context of the statutory redundancy payment scheme. As we know, Prime Minister Harold Wilson wanted to modernise the country and modernise industry. He wanted a scheme that would allow people to move from industries that were in decline to industries that were growing. He saw a statutory scheme as an important way of underpinning that. That is the context of the scheme, and that aim made sense when some industries had protection and some did not.
	At the heart of the statutory redundancy payment scheme lie two elements. First, the calculation begins by working out the number of weeks of service that are payable. Secondly, the amount of the redundancy payment is calculated after taking into account the worker's pay and the limit in the scheme. At the heart of the Bill before us is the issue of the statutory upper limit, so it is interesting to note how it has changed—or not changed—over the years.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley said, when the scheme was first introduced, the limit was set at £40, where it remained for nine years. Only in 1974 was it raised, to £80, where it stayed for a further four years. That was at a time of significantly higher inflation than we have now. From 1979 to 1997—the 18-year period in which the Conservative party was in power—the overall payment went up from £110 to £210.
	We have made far more significant increases in the statutory redundancy limit since we came into power. When we came in, the limit was £210. The current level is £350. I am sure that my hon. Friend would acknowledge that the progress made by the Labour Government in that regard has been significantly better than the Conservative party's record of increasing the limit by £100 during 18 years in government. Later I will say a little more about the formula by which the limit is increased.
	At the heart of the structure lie two elements: the number of weeks of service and the worker's pay. Workers receive half a week's pay for every year of service up to the age of 21. They receive one week's pay for every year of service between the ages of 22 and 41 and one and a half week's pay for every year of service from the age of 42. A total of up to 20 years of service can be counted.
	Perhaps the easiest way to understand how the system works is to take a practical example. Let us imagine a worker aged 50 who has just been made redundant and who has 20 years of service in the job. Let us say that the worker earns £500 a week—that figure has been quoted as the ceiling that we should raise the payment to, but I will leave that aside for the moment. Under the scheme that we currently operate, his statutory pay would be capped at the £350 limit that exists today. Our worker has eight years of service past the age of 42, which means he is entitled to one and a half weeks' pay for every year of service, so he would receive 12 weeks' pay at £350 a week. In addition, he has served for 12 years below the age of 41, for which he is entitled to a further 12 weeks' redundancy pay—again at £350 a week. This 50-year-old's redundancy payment, then, would reflect a total of 24 weeks' pay, which, multiplied by £350, comes to £8,400.
	However, if the same worker earns below the £350 limit, he will have his redundancy pay calculated on his actual weekly earnings rather than according to the £350 limit. If our 50-year-old were to earn not £500 as in the earlier example, but £250 a week, we would take his 24-week entitlement and multiply it by £250, which comes to £6,000. That is the difference arising from the different forms of earnings and the operation of the statutory limit.
	I have talked about the change in the statutory weekly limit over the years, and I believe that Governments of both colours have probably let the real value of the limit slip, but I think that this Government's record over the past 12 years stands in stark contrast with that of the Conservative Government who preceded us. In fact, over the six years from 1991 to 1997, the limit increased by only £5 a week, whereas in the past two years under this Government, it has increased by a total of £40 a week. Clearly, we have a very different approach to these issues. Although my hon. Friend is pushing us to do more through his Bill, I am sure he would agree that Labour's record in the past two years of a £40 a week increase is significantly better than that of the Conservatives—even if we take inflation into account—who, over six years, confined the increase to £5 a week.
	In tandem with the decline in the real value of the statutory redundancy limit, there has also been a gradual reduction in the rebate, which we have not discussed today, although it was an important aspect of the system when it was first introduced. At that time, the Government covered 77 per cent. of the costs. This rebate then fell to 50 per cent. in 1969, then to 41 per cent. in 1977 and subsequently to 35 per cent. in 1985. At that point in the mid-80s, the rebate was paid only to firms with fewer than 10 employees. In 1990, the rebate was abolished altogether. This matters to our discussion. Apart from the increase in the overall limit and reduction in respect of average earnings, what has happened over time is that the costs of the statutory redundancy scheme have in many ways shifted from the state to employers themselves, with the exception—I shall say more about it in a few moments—of where there is an insolvency and the state ensures that people do not lose out on their statutory payments by making payments out of the national insurance fund. For redundancies that do not revolve around insolvency, however, most costs are today shouldered by the employer.
	When we came into office in 1997, we were clear that the pattern whereby the upper limit had increased by only £5 a week over the previous six years, and by only £100 over the whole of the 18 years for which the Conservatives held office, could not continue. In times of trouble, employees were missing out on much-needed help. The Government were anxious to address that situation, but in a way that did not put substantial new costs on to either employer or taxpayer. We wanted to insert a greater degree of fairness into the system. Therefore, in 1999, we introduced an annual uprating formula. That increases the weekly limit each year, in line with the retail prices index.
	However, the matter is not as simple as that, because an additional benefit is built into the system for employees, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley did not refer, but which has an important effect on how the uprating works, and has been influential in increasing the weekly limit by £40 over the past two years. After the weekly limit is worked out, and inflation is included, the resulting number is rounded up to the nearest £10.

Patrick McFadden: I am not in denial over anything we said before the last election, and I have just referred to—and, indeed, quoted from—that, so I am hardly in denial over it. What I am saying is that when we act to improve the position of people at work, we do so not to please any sectional interest, but because the Government believe in fairness at work. Sadly, that is not a belief that is shared by the Conservative party, as has been made very clear today. I completely acknowledge our manifesto commitments, and it is because of this belief in fairness that the position of people in work in the UK today is significantly better than when the hon. Gentleman's party was in power. If he went back to those days, he would find no rights to paid leave, no minimum wage and no right to flexible working.
	Lest the hon. Gentleman be tempted to attack these measures too much, I add that it has been a significant part of his party's repositioning over recent years somehow to pretend that they like these measures. That mask appears to be slipping today, however. The Opposition appear to be reverting to type, and I think that people at work who look at the record of this debate will see the signals, and will know that the Conservative party appears to be setting itself up to promise at the next election a reduction in the rights of people at work. I am therefore perfectly happy to talk about what we said and what our motives have been in recent years.
	I was referring to the Work and Families Act 2006 and the one-off uprating to the limit through affirmative regulations. We have not yet made use of these powers, in part because the weekly limit has grown strongly in recent years. Although I understand the wishes of my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley and the other supporters of the Bill, it is fair to point out the degree to which redundancy payments have been increased in recent years.
	The Government have done something else to improve the existing redundancy regime, as well as introducing the uprating formula. Under the original scheme, service below the age of 18 did not count towards the redundancy calculation. There was also a taper in the scheme that meant that redundancy payments were progressively reduced from the age of 64 and not payable at all from the age of 65. We removed both the lower and upper age limits in the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, benefiting both younger and older workers. That was an additional important measure of fairness; no doubt, we will be accused of implementing it for reasons other than our belief in benefiting older and younger workers, but such an accusation would be as spurious as the others levelled at us today.
	We have also reviewed other elements of the existing scheme to ensure that it continues to be fair. I mentioned age bands. Under the scheme, the older someone is, the more pay they receive when they are made redundant for a given length of service. In 2005-06, we reviewed the bands as part of the age review, finding that both younger workers aged up to 24, and older workers aged 50 and above, were the most likely to be made redundant. We also found that young workers tend to find work more quickly and experience a smaller drop in their pay when switching jobs or when affected by redundancy, and that older workers are typically out of work between jobs for much longer and experience, on average, an 18 per cent. drop in pay when switching jobs. Those data suggest that older people have a greater need for higher compensation than younger people do. Consequently, after very careful consideration, we concluded that the current rules on age bands in the redundancy scheme were still relevant. After all, one of the recognitions built into the scheme since the beginning has been that it is in place to reward length of service. That seems to be reflected in how we operate the scheme.
	The Government also looked again at the link between length of service and the final redundancy settlement. We believe that the burden of providing a safety net for those made redundant should fall, in part, on the employers whom they have served. That is the way that the scheme works, so it seems sensible that redundancy payments should reflect the level of commitment demonstrated by a worker to his or her employer throughout the length of their service. We carried out a consultation on this issue as part of the age review in 2005, and we found that our approach was recognised and supported by the vast majority of those who responded to that consultation; just under 90 per cent. of people agreed with the principle that length of service should be reflected in such a way, and we decided to retain that element of the scheme. That is how the redundancy scheme operates and has been uprated in recent years, and the £40 a week increase over the past two years is the benefit that people have seen from the current uprating formula. We share a concern with my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley for a fair deal for people who are made redundant, and I believe that most of us would agree that much progress has been made in recent years, particularly because of how the formula has operated.
	Let us consider some of the specifics of my hon. Friend's Bill and whether such further changes would be appropriate, were we in a position to make them. As I said, I share much of the motivation of my hon. Friend and the many supporters of the Bill. The Bill says that the Government shall review the limit and come back within 12 months to introduce a mechanism that links the weekly limit to average earnings. It also provides that the Government will ensure that the limit is increased in line with average earnings in subsequent years. I hope that what I have said today has left no one in doubt about the Government's commitment to supporting those who have been made redundant through no fault of their own. The underlying intention of the Bill—to provide more help and to ensure that workers get a fair deal—is one that we share, but although I have much sympathy with its intentions, there are some specific reasons why I believe that the Bill, as drafted, is flawed and would not be the best solution.
	The first of those reasons revolves around cost and affordability. My hon. Friend may argue differently, but the natural reading of the Bill is that the Government should set the weekly limit at average weekly earnings. Much of the supporting material and publicity has been clear on that point. The figure for average weekly earnings has varied, depending on the supporting material. Some people have talked of £500 a week, and there has also been talk of £585 a week. It is important that we examine the costs of setting redundancy pay at such a level.
	Let us take at face value the claim that average weekly wages are £585 a week. If we raised the limit from the current £350 a week to £585, it would increase the cost of redundancy by approximately £500 million a year. Most of that cost would fall on business, and as I have said, one of the features of the redundancy system since its introduction has been the gradual transfer in the burden of payment from the state to employers, save in those cases in which insolvency is a factor, or when a business is threatened with insolvency and applies to the Insolvency Service for a loan to cover redundancy payments that might otherwise tip it into insolvency. Such a feature is an important part of the system, because we are trying to avoid businesses going into insolvency if they do not have to do so. If we keep employers in business, they can continue to employ people and keep redundancies to a minimum. The state's role in this is not restricted to the point after which insolvencies have happened; it can also play a role in lending money to businesses to pay for redundancies when not to do so might result in an otherwise avoidable insolvency situation.
	Even taking both aspects of the state's role into account, most of the cost of raising the limit will fall on business. The effect of the Bill may in fact be greater, because it is not uncommon for contractual redundancy pay to be based on a multiple of the statutory rate. A fairly common feature of employment contracts is that the contractual redundancy pay will be set at one and a half or two times the statutory weekly limit, so any increase in the limit—as I say, we have increased it in recent years—will have an on-cost in terms of contractual redundancy pay, too.
	Taking all those factors into account, we think that the cost will be about £500 million, without also taking into account the contractual redundancy pay. That will tend to apply more in the better organised workplaces and the union-organised workplaces. Unlike the Opposition, I can see the benefits of being in a union-organised workplace where a contract with such a provision might be negotiated. One would always hope to avoid redundancy, but if one could not and the company was not in an insolvency situation, the worker would benefit from such a contractual provision.
	How the exact costs worked out would depend on how we defined average weekly earnings. I believe that £585 is the average for full-time weekly earnings. The figure does not include part-time workers and if we included them it would fall. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley intends to include part-time workers in his calculation of average weekly earnings or whether he would just include full-time workers, but the figures are different. The average for purely full-time workers is £585, but if part-time workers were included the average would be £450 a week. The current weekly limit represents about 73 per cent. of average earnings as things stand, if we include part-time workers in the calculation. Even if we took that figure as our baseline, raising the weekly limit to £450 would increase the cost of redundancy by about £260 million a year. Again, we have to consider the impact on contractual redundancy pay to get a full insight into the costs. That is an important factor to consider.
	I am not arguing that we can never impose costs on employers. We have done so when we thought that that was right, and it is not always wrong, but it is a legitimate factor to take into account, especially at a time of economic difficulty such as now. The cost is one factor that it is important to consider. If we raise the limit, about three quarters of the cost will be borne by employers.
	There is clearly a case for providing additional help to employees, as I have said. I went through some of the measures that we are taking in response to the recession. I have talked about the measures that Jobcentre Plus and the rapid response service are taking when people are faced with redundancy. We also need to be conscious that businesses are struggling to keep their heads above water. We must consider the need to do everything we can to help keep people in work as well as the package that should be made available to them if they lose their jobs.
	Of course, it could be argued—perhaps by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley—that the Government could deal with the problem of costs to business by shouldering more of those costs and reintroducing the rebate. His Bill is silent on whether the state should carry more of the burden of the cost of redundancy payments but, even if we went down that road, it would not be an easy answer. Pressures on spending exist in that area too. At present there is sometimes confusion, because people hear about the big numbers involved in bank rescues, with the Government underwriting loans of many billions of pounds, and indeed sometimes underwriting loan books stretching to hundreds of billions of pounds; but that is not the same as spending hundreds of billions of pounds. Acting as an insurer is very different from one-off expenditure on a school or a hospital. It is certainly not the case that the Government are free to spend taxpayers' money without limit. There are implications for public spending, too.
	Even in the first scenario, where we did not introduce the rebate and carried on with the present system, the Government would still have to bear a proportion of the costs. As I said, that is because the Government are obliged to meet the cost of redundancy payments when employers become insolvent. The average full-time earnings figure of £585 would leave the state carrying an annual burden of something more than £100 million.
	Apart from costs, we have to consider another factor that arises from the Bill: the question of time. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) raised the question of urgency. Timing is a legitimate factor. We have already raised the limit. In the Work and Families Act 2006, we took the power to make a one-off increase to the limit. The Bill offers an alternative road for doing that, but we have to consider the timing. I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley's motivation is not just to increase the statutory redundancy payment limit but to do so quite quickly—probably in the context of the current recession.
	In two or three years' time, we hope that the country will have turned the corner and be pulling out of recession and on the road to recovery. I think my hon. Friend's aim is that his measure should be part of our response to the recession, but in terms of timing, how would the Bill work in practice? He says that within 12 months we should come forward with a proposal, and that in the meantime the Government should consult the CBI and the TUC. My Department regularly consults not only the CBI but other employers organisations, and not only the TUC but other trade unions. We are always happy to do that, and the quality of the responses to those consultations makes a valuable contribution to Government policy. However, if we did that for the Bill, the responses to such consultation would be fairly predictable.
	The unions, for reasons I understand, would call for the limit to be increased substantially. Employers, for reasons I also understand, would argue that they could not afford such an increase. They would say that we were in the middle of a recession and the Government should understand that we should not impose new costs at such a time, and so on. In the end, the Government would have to square the circle and make a judgment. We could make such a change at any point, but if we took a further year to do so, there would be more redundancies during that year. There is a timing issue involved, if we want to increase redundancy payments.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley will understand that I am not in a position to make promises about public spending today. I cannot suddenly tell him what will happen in future. If we were to increase redundancy payments, it might be quicker to do so through the measure in the Work and Families Act 2006, which has already passed through the House. That way, we would not have to pilot a new Bill through the House—we can never predict quite how long that will take—and carry out a 12-month consultation after that. I suspect that my hon. Friend wants urgency and speed on the issue, but I am not sure that the Bill would give him urgency and speed. In fact, there is already a measure on the stocks that could be used, if the Government made a decision on the subject. I stress again that I am not making any announcement about an increase today. He knows that I am not able to do that. The issue of timing, and whether the Bill is the right vehicle, is perfectly legitimate, as is the issue of the uprating, which is at the heart of his Bill.
	If the Bill was passed, it would in practice be 12 months before any changes could be introduced—and it would first have to complete all its parliamentary stages. My hon. Friend has quite fairly raised the issue of redundancy payments today. He knows that the issue is under discussion in Government. He has made his point; he has explored the issues and laid them before the House. He spoke with great skill and passion on behalf of the people about whom he is concerned. I simply ask him to think about whether, if we increased redundancy payments, the Bill would be the vehicle for doing so. He has perhaps underplayed the fact that the Government already have a power that they can use to make such an increase, if we judge that that is the right thing to do in the current circumstances. If we used that power, any increase would, in all likelihood, come into force more quickly than it would under the process set out in his Bill, which would be required to undergo the full, normal parliamentary procedure of a Committee stage and so on. That would be followed by the 12-month consultation mentioned in his Bill. So there are issues of content, effect and timing.
	I now come to the third matter to which I wish to draw the House's attention. If we were increasing statutory redundancy pay, would the formula in my hon. Friend's Bill be the right way to do so? Under the statutory scheme, everyone earning above the weekly limit would receive a redundancy payment based on the limit. Someone earning £400, £500 or even £1,000 a week would receive, if they were dependent on the statutory scheme, a redundancy payment based on the figure of £350. However, anyone earning below the weekly limit receives a redundancy payment calculated using their actual pay. If we concentrate all our efforts on increasing the upper limit from £350 to whatever it may be—the average earnings of £450 a week including part-time workers or average full-time earnings set at £585 a week—only those earning £350 a week will benefit. Workers earning below that limit would not be affected by the changes proposed in the Bill.
	Let us look at an example of how that might work. In the supporting papers for the Bill, my hon. Friend circulated tables of constituencies and employment rates, which showed how many people in each constituency earned above the £350 limit. If we take his constituency of Chorley, the figures showed that 47 per cent. of people earn above the weekly limit—roughly half. So half of his constituents are earning above the current weekly limit, and half earning below. If we had a limited amount of money and we concentrated it purely on increasing the upper limit, we would benefit the better-off half of the workers in his constituency. That is not an ignoble thing to do. I am not pretending that £350 a week is high earnings, but that would be the effect of concentrating purely on the weekly limit. The lower-paid half of workers in the constituency would not see a rise in their redundancy pay.
	That issue should be considered when we take a sectoral view. My hon. Friend mentioned workers in the hotel and catering sector. In that sector, around 22 per cent. of workers earn above the weekly limit, which would mean that only the better paid 22 per cent. of people working in that sector would benefit from a measure that was focused on the upper weekly limit. The 78 per cent. who earned below the weekly limit would not benefit. I am not arguing that £350 a week is a huge amount of money because it is not, but as well as considering how the formula would have impacted in recent years and how long it would take for the Bill to come into effect, we have to consider content. If we had a limited amount of money and we wanted to do something about redundancy pay, would the Bill be the best way to do it? Would it concentrate help on those who needed it most? It has been a significant and justified part of our Government's approach to try to concentrate help on the lowest paid and we have done that. The hon. Member for Solihull referred to pensions, and we took such an approach to pensions during our early years in government. We took the same approach with the minimum wage, and that is a perfectly understandable and fair principle.
	From a nationwide point of view, about 7.2 million workers in the UK earn below £250 per week. About 5 million of these are people working part time. Three quarters of them are women. A further 2 million people are earning between £200 and £250 a week—in other words, at or perhaps just above the national minimum wage level.
	As I have said, I am not in a position today to announce extra help for redundancy pay. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley would like me to do that, but I pose this question: if we were in a position to identify extra Government resources and ask business to contribute more to redundancy pay, should we not also ask where it is best to direct that help? Should it be to lifting the upper limit or to concentrating help more on the low-paid? That is at least a legitimate question for debate. It is incumbent on us to consider that matter as well as the timing of the Bill. As I have said, I cannot promise that there is money available to do any of that, as the House will understand. However, whether we help those earning above £350 or below, it is a legitimate issue for debate, as are all the other matters that I have mentioned.
	It is absolutely right and fair for us to consider redundancy payment, but it is important that we do not see it in isolation. Our response to the recession should also take into account the other things that we are doing to help people. When people are faced with redundancy, what matters is not just the redundancy payment, although that is very important. It is also what we can do to help them to find a new job and give them a second chance. We wish to do more than simply pay benefits as in the past. The Government must have an eye on the future and on ensuring that those affected by redundancy take their second chance by reskilling, upskilling and giving themselves a better opportunity to find a job in future.
	The economy that emerges from this recession will not be based simply on pressing the rewind button to 2006 before the sub-prime crisis, the troubles at Northern Rock, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the other traumatic events of the past couple of years. As we navigate the downturn, we must also ensure that those affected by redundancy can compete in the British economy in years to come. My Department has talked of industrial activism. That does not mean that we are going to try to pick winning companies, but it means that we see those affected by redundancy as needing to be equipped for industries in which we know this country will have to succeed in future.
	For example, my noble Friend Lord Carter has published a strategy to help to ensure the provision of broadband throughout the country, knowing that the information and creative economy is critically dependent on a modern communication infrastructure. Similarly, we know that the way we heat our homes and offices, transport ourselves and manufacture our goods will change radically in future so that Britain is at the forefront of the skills and jobs needed in an ever-expanding green collar labour market.
	That is why I believe that, in debating these issues, we should concentrate not solely on the financial payment available to people but on the real and practical help that they get from the Government in terms of retraining, new skills, and so on. Several years ago, we published the Leitch report, which identified the skills shortages in this country.
	If we think back to Harold Wilson's motivation for introducing the statutory redundancy scheme in the first place, we see that it was about labour mobility. It was about giving people that second chance, not just about the perfectly legitimate concern to ensure that people were rewarded for their years of service. It is a mistake simply to view this issue in isolation without taking into account the doubling of the budget for the rapid response service or the £1.3 billion that has been made available to the Train to Gain scheme, which means that it is available for shorter-term courses and available to people who already have qualifications. They are not excluded from taking part in it because they have already had some training. The scheme is now much more flexible, and it is there precisely so that people who may be affected by redundancy or by short-time working are equipped for the jobs and industries of the future.
	Our response to the recession and to the problems created by rising unemployment and rising redundancy is to ensure that a fair system of statutory redundancy payments is available. We have increased it by £40 per week in the past two years, compared with an overall increase of £5 per week in the last six years of the Conservative Government. We have introduced a new formula, with the provision that it not only increases by the level of RPI but is rounded up by £10 per week. That has resulted in an increase in payments at the weekly limit of beyond-average earnings in recent years. That is a completely legitimate thing to do, but it would be wrong to say that it is purely where we should concentrate our efforts.
	In saying that, I do not mean that we should rule out further action, but I do mean that we should see it in a wider context of help for the unemployed, retraining and skills for the future. That is precisely the challenge that was put before us in the Leitch review several years ago. It highlighted the importance of investing in skills to maximise economic growth, productivity and social justice in a globalised economy. Hard skills matter, as do, in a world where services are more important economically, soft skills and people skills. In the economy of the future, we will find that many people facing redundancy will have to find new jobs in new areas. That was the original motivation behind the statutory redundancy scheme, and it remains the motivation behind the scheme today.
	Our response to all this is a major investment programme. More than £11 billion a year will be invested in education, employment and training. We have expanded apprenticeships, with more than £1 billion in Government funding to increase overall places by more than 400,000 by 2010-11. As colleagues know, we plan to lift the education and training leaving age to 18 by 2015.
	Schools are also critical and we have made a historic commitment to raise the participation age to 17 by 2013 and to 18, as I said. That is an important part of our approach.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley is motivated by the impact of recession and job losses on his constituency and others. The Bill is well intentioned and we certainly need to do more to help those who need it most. However, I do not believe that the measure is the right way to achieve that goal and I have set out reasons for that.
	Some of my reservations are about the formula and how it would work. We have a formula that has worked well in recent years and we also have a power to uprate, which would act considerably more quickly than the mechanism for which the Bill provides. If we intended to use any improvement to redundancy payments to help those affected by the recession, the existing power to uprate the formula would be a much quicker mechanism for doing that than the method that the measure sets out. I ask hon. Members to keep that point in mind, although, as I said earlier, I cannot make spending announcements today. There is also the question of whom we should help if money were made available or if we asked business to make a contribution in the way in which the Bill sets out.
	My hon. Friend claimed that there was no spending commitment and that the measure is merely a guide to the Government. There is a logical flaw in that argument. The Bill either commits us to increasing redundancy payment in line with average earnings, and to introducing a new formula to increase it in line with future average earnings after the one-off increase, or it does not. If it does not, what is the point? What is the point of legislation that is simply declaratory when we already have a power on the statute book to increase redundancy payment quicker than the Bill would? There is a logical flaw in arguing that the Bill would have no impact on spending because it would leave all power in the hands of Ministers. We have that power anyway under the Work and Families Act 2006, and we do not need the Bill.
	My hon. Friend has made his point. He wants redundancy payment to be addressed—that is a fair point. As I have told him, discussions about the matter are going on in Government, but there is a logical flaw at the heart of the Bill. Either it has the implications for cost to business and to the Government that I outlined or it does not. We already have powers to increase redundancy payment. Of course, that would not be a decision for me, but for Government as a whole, and we would not announce such a decision today, as he knows. Those are the reasons for my reservations about the Bill and for being unable to support it.
	I want to consider the notion of average earnings as our guiding light. Even if we wanted to do more about redundancy payment, why should average earnings be that guiding light? To begin with, we do not have an agreed definition of what average earnings are. We are not just talking about how much they increase by every year, as we would with the pensions system, which has been referred to; we are talking about setting the weekly limit at the level of average earnings. Is the figure £450, which includes part-time workers, or £585, which refers purely to full-time workers? It is not clear from the Bill which definition my hon. Friend is using.
	Other elements of the redundancy package would include pay for the notice period to which the worker is entitled, pay for outstanding leave owed to the worker, unemployment benefit, tax and child credits, and retraining to help the worker gain new skills and find work as quickly as possible. There is not necessarily a magic level for redundancy pay within that overall package. However, we should not let the level atrophy, as it did in the past. I do not want us to return to the days when the Conservative party let it waste away, increasing it by only £5 over six years. We have increased the level from £210 to £350 while we have held office and by £40 a week in past two years. However, I question whether the level of average earnings is necessarily the right level for any future increase.
	The Bill is flawed in its approach, although I share my hon. Friend's concern for people at work. I would not want anyone to go away from today's debate thinking that we were not concerned about people at work. We have made many changes to improve the lot of people at work. It would be a great mistake to ignore those changes, some of which come in next month. We should celebrate them and campaign on them. We should point out that those changes would never be granted by the Conservative party. If we find ourselves in the position of increasing redundancy payments, we have a quicker way to do so than we would under the Bill.
	I hope that my hon. Friend will consider the points that I have made and understand that I cannot promise him an increase today. However, I assure him that we will do more to help people affected by the recession. I will remain in dialogue with him about the issues. The dialogue that we have had so far has been constructive and positive. However, I hope that he will understand why, for the reasons that I have set out, I cannot support his Bill today, even if I share his concern that people at work should get a fair deal and the best possible package of support. Crucially, that should apply not only when people are made redundant, but in respect of the whole package that they are offered: to help them find a new job and reskill for the future, to ensure that losing a job, while it is a setback and a crisis for every family, is not the end of that family's opportunity, and to ensure that we stand with people in those circumstances to give them a better second chance in the future.

Lindsay Hoyle: I have to say that my right hon. Friend has given a sterling performance with his longevity. His prostate must be much better than the rest ours: he has taken on the water and managed not to go and relieve himself, but we now have the pleasure of allowing him to do so.
	The Bill is very important. We have worked hard with my right hon. Friend's Department and the Secretary of State and we have had good, constructive meetings. There is a great opportunity here to help the Government. Indeed, through this Bill I have offered the Government time to carry on with the very good business of looking after this country and fighting the world recession. I recognise that that is at the top of the agenda and I want to give the Minister the time to carry on doing that.
	We should give a fair wind to the Bill, as the majority of Back-Bench MPs support it. What is important is that we want to carry on sending out the message. People may well have different views, but that suggests the advantage of taking the Bill into Committee where differences can be overcome. The Bill should not be blocked now. I hope that the Opposition recognise that democracy is important and that any differences can be discussed in Committee. I am pleased to bring the Bill before the House today. It should go forward into Committee.

Jeremy Browne: That was my instinct, and I am grateful for the hon. Lady's support.
	The other change, which came out of my meeting with the BMA, was that the period between the Bill becoming law and taking effect should be three years. In previous attempts, it was six months. I am sure that those people who are enthusiastic about the measure would prefer the timescale to be shorter, but the BMA made the point that it is not easy to go from a system under which 26 per cent. of organs are available for donation to one in which 90 per cent. are available in a very short time. An educational process is necessary to inform the population, and there are also practical issues such as the availability of facilities in hospitals. A three-year timetable would therefore be more appropriate. I would hope that during that three-year period we would see more people opting in as awareness of the issue increased—in fact, I think that that is inevitable.

Stephen O'Brien: I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) not only for selecting this subject for a private Member's Bill, but for putting his case in a reasonable and measured way while seeking to cover the points on the minds of all those considering the matter in this House and beyond. I declare that I am on the organ donation register—hopefully, along with most of my colleagues—and have been since 1986. I still have my card from that time; I seem to recall that it replaced what was then known as the kidney donor card, which I had no problem getting well below the age of 18. I had my first card when I was 14 in 1971, but that is going back a long while.
	To discuss organ donation is literally to discuss life and death. We must recognise that, and I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to all those who are donors, whether of blood, plasma or bone marrow, and all those on the organ donation register— 15.8 million people, according to NHS Blood and Transplant. I am glad to note that it was my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) who, in his first debate in the House after he was elected in 1979, sought to move forward the donor campaign. We must pay tribute not only to all those who have given up their organs in death so that others might live, but to their friends and families who, in their moment of grief, were prepared to take or support that step.
	When contemplating those who have not, for whatever reason, registered for organ donation—and the hon. Member for Taunton mentioned this—I would say that it is probably not a matter of laziness, although there is certainly a lack of knowledge and education on the part of some. Often, people are worried not so much about themselves, but about the turmoil for those they leave behind, and whether it would be an extra stress for them to face the idea of their loved one's body having an organ taken from it. When talking to those who have been through this process, we find that some families, oddly enough, found the process helpful because the fact that their loved one was useful to the future life of someone else gave them a focus. Although that would not apply to all, it is useful to bear it in mind when seeking to persuade people that they ought to consider being on the organ donation register.
	Although all hon. Members no doubt hold strong opinions on this issue and will seek to hold the Government to account, as we do all the time, I have no doubt that in our minds the debate will be underpinned by the selfless acts of hundreds of people across the country. Many of us will remember the first heart transplant, performed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard in South Africa in 1967. It is one of my first memories of news on TV, along with Churchill's funeral and the first man stepping on the moon, all during the pioneering days of the late 1960s.
	As of today, 7,981 people are waiting for transplants, but only about 3,000 transplants are carried out each year. Tragically, that leads to more than 1,000 people a year dying for want of a transplant. The chief medical officer has stated that others are dying silently because doctors who know that there is no hope of their getting treatment are not putting them on transplant waiting lists. In Britain we have about 13 donors per 1 million people in our population. Spain is the best in the world in that regard, with 35 per million.
	As hon. Members will know, this issue was last raised in legislative terms during the passage of the Human Tissue Act 2004, with the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) pushing for a system of presumed consent. Then, as now, the issue was one of conscience. It is therefore free vote territory for the Opposition and, I believe, for all parties. As the Conservative spokesman on health, and on this matter in particular, I emphasise that my words today do not constitute a party line. I believe that that is also true of the words of the hon. Member for Taunton, although I know that he has been able to attract the support of some of his colleagues. Hon. Members will know how they voted in 2004. For my part, I voted against introducing a system of presumed consent, as did the current Prime Minister.
	We were also able to debate the matter in a Westminster Hall debate on a motion to adjourn on 20 November last year. That provided an opportunity to debate the Organ Donation Taskforce's report on presumed consent. The taskforce was commissioned by the Prime Minister in January to look into the matter, following his apparent damascene conversion. In his homiletic article in  T he Sunday Telegraph of 13 January, he wrote:
	"I want to start a genuine debate".
	He also suggested that a move to presumed consent would make us a "more compassionate Britain".
	Irrespective of the change of mind that anyone might have had, it was right that the matter be referred to an expert panel—the better for being a panel that was focused on evidence rather than framing any judgment, moral or otherwise. At the time I paid tribute to Elisabeth Buggins and her team for the thorough and thoughtful process that they had undertaken. It was refreshing to see a progression of thinking in the report from a group with disparate views to broad consensus.

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (12 March),
	That this House welcomes the work of the United Kingdom Youth Parliament in providing young people with an opportunity to engage with the political process and bring about social change; notes that many hon. Members from all parts of the House are actively involved in the work of the UK Youth Parliament; and accordingly resolves that the UK Youth Parliament should be allowed for this year alone to hold its 2009 annual meeting in the Chamber of this House.—( Chris Bryant.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 Debate to be resumed on 16 March.